I see you off the path, a tattered shoe
Against the dirt, and you pant like a dog
In midday summer: stories about you
Are set in lands of thickened moral fog.

I set my pen down as the dimming light
Obscured your virtues like a thunder cloud,
And wondered, if I tried with all my might
If I could let you end your story proud.

I tried and tried but never could, my book
Describing pain I feel at every death
Of innocence that makes me but a crook,
A thief to capture one more soul’s last breath.

The strange thing is, I know you aren't dead,
Since my pen's dirty work kills me instead.